Mayor Sam Adams
Portland City Hall
Portland, OR
Sam,
Thanks for your mention today in State of the Cityat City Club our statewide land use planning legacy and such efforts as Portland’s complete neighborhoods. These efforts have attracted planners and other built environment professionals from all over the country (often right out of graduate school).Yet, for much of the time that I’ve been back here (mid 2007), the City and related agencies have been laying off planners and shrinking their RFPs. The unemployment rate amongst us built environment professionals is said to be around 45% (though things seem to have picked up a bit for some architecture firms lately).What do you recommend for those of us in planning and other built environment fields? It seems your jobs plan overlooks us. Should we seek to squeeze into other fields? Move to another city? Try to get a job with New Seasons? Start our own B-Line bicycle delivery company? Other?I’m going to post this question on my blog and tweet it to you as that will have far better chance of getting an answer.
Thanks,
MaryPS I’d like to suggest that your next round of budget cuts start with the POLICE! The number of police and amount of overtime you/they spent on Occupy Portland has been quite wasteful. Please know that it is me and people like me who are part of Occupy Portland! We will take care of the occasional overly enthusiastic person in the group ourselves. We don’t need three trucks of cops fully-equipped in riot gear riding around our downtown streets to make us feel safe–not to mention all the police car, bicycle and horseback cops et al–quite the contrary!PPS I appreciated your response to the Oregonian’s article on street maintenance. Bob Stacey just posted a fine piece about that on his blog.
Thanks for your mention today in State of the Cityat City Club our statewide land use planning legacy and such efforts as Portland’s complete neighborhoods. These efforts have attracted planners and other built environment professionals from all over the country (often right out of graduate school).Yet, for much of the time that I’ve been back here (mid 2007), the City and related agencies have been laying off planners and shrinking their RFPs. The unemployment rate amongst us built environment professionals is said to be around 45% (though things seem to have picked up a bit for some architecture firms lately).What do you recommend for those of us in planning and other built environment fields? It seems your jobs plan overlooks us. Should we seek to squeeze into other fields? Move to another city? Try to get a job with New Seasons? Start our own B-Line bicycle delivery company? Other?I’m going to post this question on my blog and tweet it to you as that will have far better chance of getting an answer.
Thanks,
MaryPS I’d like to suggest that your next round of budget cuts start with the POLICE! The number of police and amount of overtime you/they spent on Occupy Portland has been quite wasteful. Please know that it is me and people like me who are part of Occupy Portland! We will take care of the occasional overly enthusiastic person in the group ourselves. We don’t need three trucks of cops fully-equipped in riot gear riding around our downtown streets to make us feel safe–not to mention all the police car, bicycle and horseback cops et al–quite the contrary!PPS I appreciated your response to the Oregonian’s article on street maintenance. Bob Stacey just posted a fine piece about that on his blog.
Mary Vogel, CNU-A
PlanGreen
A Woman Business Enterprise/Emerging Small Business in Oregon
503-245-7858
http://www.plangreen.net
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Latest tweet: My neighborhood can be so much fun sometimes. Welcome back Occupy! Check out these photos: http://t.co/bR5om4qc |
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